Tap-Dancing Hooves and Migraines

So it's nearly 4am on Friday, not my usual blogging hour, or waking hour for that matter. But I figured that seeing as I'm suffering from a little migraine based sleep deprivation I'd get up and share with you the events of yesterday and the sitcom that became my life.

Duffle, you've been with us for 3 days and already had the whole family, nay street, in fits!

So yesterday morning, as per Thursday usual, I'm up at the fruit and veg co-op and the girls are taking the mickey out of me as usual for the sheer volume of fruit and veg we consume in our house. I'm particularly ravenous yesterday morning as, I explain to the girls, I've had a migraine hanging about. Migraines come from stomachs, and I've been having some slightly odd food cravings as my body tries to process whatever it is that's giving me the migraine. So I scoff even more fruit the second it comes off the delivery van than usual, while remarking that I may actually have worms because of the obsession I have with food at the moment.

So after the co-op, I go home and announce that I'm not going out on the mountain as I need to catch up on the housework, and, being food obsessed, I was going to cook a carrot and onion thick soup and a veggie curry, then give some to Ms Brooks when I dropped her order off later.

I get cracking on the top floor of housework and I'm starting to notice my headache coming back. I try to ignore it and move on, so I'm peeling some veggies to part cook for my curry and I start to feel a bit ropey. 5 minutes after the veggies are in the steamer, I very quickly realize that I have a choice. Either give in to the migraine and get to bed or pass out and throw up. Little lights flashing around the sides of my eyes, stomach cramps , the lot.

So I quickly text the world to let them know not to disturb me as I'm not feeling very well and to get them to make sure I'm up in time for work at half seven. Was touch and go at that moment I was feeling so ropey.

So I get into bed, having taken a shed load of painkillers and some kaolin and morphine, and I'm lying still in bed for fear of hurling, wearing nothing but my socks and bra. I was intending putting my pyjamas on but I got the shakes, so I got in part dressed. Lush.

It then became apparent that the light was bothering me, so I got a pair of Hubby's (clean) pants out of the drawer and draped them over my eyes. Much better. But the smell of the part cooked cauli from the kitchen was threatening to have me pebble dash my own duvet cover, so up I got again, found the Vick's, and slapped a wodge under my nose. God, my Hubby's a lucky man. So sexy.

As is usual for me with migraines, I'm finding it hard to power down my brain ready for the re-boot, so I resort to sheep counting and pretending it's a cold wet Tuesday morning and I have to get up in order to drop off to re-boot sleep, and I finally manage it after ages.

And then within 5 minutes of dropping off, you know when you just get that sense that something is awry and needs your urgent attention?

So up I shoot and straight to the bedroom window that looks over onto our mountain. What sight do I behold as I gaze out into the sun? Hubby has gone out, leaving Duffle tethered up at the top of the mountain, and the little get is currently tap dancing on the bonnet of my car. You couldn't make it up.

So I'm stood there in my bizarre partial attire, still with the pants on my head and the Vick's up my nose trying to take in the sight and re format my faulty brain into action to do something about the little routine being performed before my very eyes.

At that point I can hear than my next door neighbours are laughing their heads off and sending one of their kids around to tell me what's going on. Meg has passed out on the sofa, having undertaken and art and history marathon, and I can hear her blaspheming down stairs about the poxy goat waking her up now too, so I dash down and she asks me what she has to do to get the hooves off the now roof of my car.

I instruct her that she has to take his lead further down the mountain to by his house. I know the old adage - when you "presume" you "make an ass out of u and me" but I PRESUMED that she wouldn't unhook said goat from said lead, unfortunately, my instructions weren't specific enough, and Duffle is off like a shot down the lane with half of the street following him at high speed.

The newly awoken Meg springs into action in her leopard print slippers and manages to get a lead on all the other runners and wannabe riders while I look on, slightly furious, I don't mind telling you, with Hubby for interrupting my re-boot sleep with goat based antics, but at the same time unable to resist the hilarity of the situation. I've still got the pants on my head etc, by the way.

So I shoot back upstairs to get dressed so that I can help, but I'm not sure if Meg has keys, her phone was on the sofa so I couldn't find out where she was to help, so I had an agonizing 10 minute wait past this point and some annoyed phone calls with Hubby who couldn't help but fall about laughing.

Eventually, after what felt like 15 hours, hubby pulls up in the car and just As he's getting out, one of our puffing and blowing neighbours comes around the corner and exclaims that "she's got it!" fairly closely followed by the goat-hating teenager with Duffle trotting along nicely feeling rather pleased with himself, surrounded by a blue cloud of cursing, panting and swearing from Meg, so Steve gets him on one of the dogs leads and reins him home.

The little get ran nearly all the way to Llanhilleth, well over a mile.

You can imagine it now, can't you? In pubs and at dinner tables all over the valleys yesterday evening "Hey love, you never guess what I saw today? I was driving down the main road from Swffryd to Llan and there was this girl in leopard print slippers chasing a goat with a red collar on down the side of the road! I've never seen anything like it in my life!"

I've got quite attached to the hoof prints on my windscreen now.

Welcome Duffle!

So he's finally arrived! The long awaited goat/mobile plant fertilizing unit. He's very naughty - I like him! He's quite happy to eat out of my hand (to eat in general actually! I never thought I'd find a creature more obsessed with his stomach than our Choccy Lab, Wellington, but we appear to have!) and any notion of placidity should be disposed of immediately. The little get is quite happy to knob off at a moment's notice, and given that our fencing is not yet properly finished, his steel rope will be staying on! He has actually started doing his job, he's been eating brambles (yummy!) but no poo as yet. I dare say there'll be an abundance shortly, though.

So, 25 metres of fencing has been erected, so far and temporary fencing erected where the proper fencing has not yet been put up. It's actually helped a bit with the mental aspect of land clearing as you can clearly see where ours stops. It seems a lot less infinite now there's a load of fencing around it. I still just can't believe how much rubbish there is to clear when we've already done so much. We've decided to fence off the main part of the land to concentrate on, and deal with the bottom part at a later date. Sensible, I think.

So that's where a lot of my day has gone today.Stock proof fencing and trying to stroke goats. So we had fish and chips to celebrate a day well spent and new addition to the herd. That's what we all are, you see, a herd.

But I went to my usual Monday job today, due to the bank holiday. I do a two hour "domestic" visit for a lovely lady that I would never offend by calling old - she certainly is not that. She just needs some assistance with some day to day tasks. This week, that manifested itself in the way of clearing out her conservatory. The tasks I had today made me think back to a conversation we had previously, and, in fact my constant grumblings when out on the land.

The "conservatory" is actually a very well made lean-to for storage, plant growing purposes. They had it decorated and the flooring done in 1946 when they moved in, and nothing more than a lick of emulsion since. My lady was very concerned about the rust makes on the 1940s linoleum floor and had me on my knees scrubbing the marks. I didn't get all that much off, but we gave it our best shot together. Luckily I still had the floor to polish to take the emphasis away. Yes, I said polish. Even after having the flooring down for 54 years, she still places emphasis on looking after it correctly. How many people would do that these days? They'd just think "yuck, look at those rust marks" and pull the whole lot up, when it was essentially fairly sound flooring.

This goes back to a conversation we had a few weeks ago about the rugs she has in the house. Great big oriental rugs in the middle of all her major rooms, with lesser, ordinary carpet around the edges in the old traditional style. My lady was telling me that the rugs cost them a fortune, back in the day, but now are worth more! Despite their 54 years of use. DO you know anyone who's had their carpet for 54 years?

Today, once again, while out on the mountain, I exclaimed that carpet should be banned, after unearthing yet another cheap, plastic, "disposable" carpet from the 70's or 80's. They don't deteriorate. They just sit, leaking chemicals and stifling the ground until some unfortunate person unearths it.

Pre-cycling is a relatively new term, but it encourages consumers and producers to think about the end of that product's life. How it can be disposed of? Are there any upgrading possibilities? What impact is disposal going to have on the environment. There's no such thing as "throwing it away". It never goes away. You remember learning about half lives in school? You're just moving it to a different location and passing the responsibility elsewhere.

"Away" simply doesn't exist.